Liquid Fire

by Anthony Francis

  “Alex spins fire?” Cinnamon asked. “For real?”

  “For real,” I said. Alex was more than my contact in the Wizarding Guild—he was a practicing, if covert fire magician, which had to be a hell of a dance for the host of a skeptical TV show. “He can lift himself right off the ground if the wind is right—”

  “Alex spins magic fire?” Cinnamon asked, eyes wide. “And can fly?”

  “Yes, but let’s say he floats with style,” I said. “Heck, for all I know he’s here tonight, if not as a performer, maybe in the audience—”

  But before I could whip out my smartphone to ask him, an announcer called out that the performance would begin in fifteen minutes, and Cinnamon practically dragged me to our seats, afraid someone would take them from us.

  In front of the two story interior building was a row of bleachers opposite a stage framed on either end by welded metal pillars. Between the stage and the bleachers were three rows of floor seating with an excellent view of the stage. I checked our stubs and blinked.

  The ticket lady hadn’t lied—we were right up front, the best seats in the house.

  I was glad Cinnamon wasn’t stuck behind someone taller, but as I seated myself, I heard a snort of disgust and turned to see a short elderly lady behind me, wrapped in some expensive fur that almost certainly wasn’t fake, scowling up at me and my Mohawk.

  To be nice, I offered her one of the four empty seats beside us, but the woman shook her head, holding herself so stiffly her whole body seemed to pivot. I looked over at Cinnamon, and she shrugged. With a grin at the scowling lady and her morbid fashion statement, I switched seats with Cinnamon so as not to be rude—and just as we got settled, the show started.

  Twin gouts of fire roared out of either side of the stage, tearing the air with sharp, spitting sounds, like the hisses of hidden dragons. The audience jerked back from the unexpected flash of heat and flare of light—and then the lights fell, leaving us in darkness.

  Something creaked. A drumbeat started. The trumpets of fire again flared, striking the welded iron pillars bracketing the stage. Delicate blue-white flames climbed their ornate sides. The pillars squealed, started to turn—and began throwing off drops of burning liquid.

  Cinnamon squealed in delight, and I laughed. The pillars were well designed—they spun just fast enough to throw the flaming drops off, but slow enough that the fiery spray of the fuel fell in wide catch-basins at the bottom of each pillar without hitting the audience.

  The turning pillars flared brightly, erupting in roiling gouts of flame that climbed up their ridged sides and rolled toward the ceiling in twin rings of fire. As the waves of heat and light faded, two young men became visible on the stage, as if by magic.

  Naked to the waist, hair slicked up into spikes, the men prowled to the front of the stage in diaphanous, beaded harem pants tied at the ankles. Each held aloft a black sword; in unison, they struck them against the pillars and the swords ignited, becoming glowing blades of fire.

  The beat of the music grew faster as the men whirled their blades in an elaborate dance of fire. At first, it was simple fan-blade spins and fencing thrusts; then it became more exotic, demonstrative, their sweaty bodies moving with the grace of wushu practitioners.

  They ranged the stage, then converged, leaping like acrobats, one flying over the other, their blades of fire spinning above and below them like twin helicopters as the pillars too flared. The sharp tang of the fuel nipped at my nostrils as the fiery acrobats flew apart.

  Between their parting blades, two taut young women appeared like genies, holding poi—knotted wicks on chains. The men lit the women’s poi, spun their own swords out—and seemed to disappear. The pillars dimmed too, leaving the stage lit only by the spinning balls of fire.

  The women wove across the stage, bodies slinking back and forth like belly dancers; but over the jingling of their costumes you could clearly hear the spinning balls of flame rushing through the air as the women wove circles and figure eights and flowers around themselves.

  At first, they danced together in unison; then they too broke out, ranging the stage as they performed elaborate tricks with the fireballs on their chains—fast, slow, arcs, flowers, spinning the balls so slowly they seemed to hang there—then even stopping them.

  My mouth opened as the audience gasped. The two women had made the flaming balls hang above their heads, eerily motionless; then they jerked their poi down, creating elaborate arcs in the air that were not tricks of the camera but real flowing comets of flame.

  The men reappeared, each with four poi, which they lit off the women’s flames; dark-garbed ninjas appeared and snatched the women’s poi away just as their flames were dying, and the women took the extra poi from the men and began a coordinated show.

  My eyes tightened; I hadn’t expected the flames to run out that fast. Sure enough, as the show progressed, through fire spinning and fire swords and even an amazing piece involving dancers writhing vertically up and down stripes of silk cloth while they twirled fans of fire, it was always broken into short segments, where either the performers or the poi changed.

  I heard a curse beside me, and glanced over at Cinnamon. It looked like she was having a blast. Occasionally, her head snapped aside in that rough, sneezy tic that usually preceded an F-bomb; the doctors had warned us that as she went through her teens, her Tourette’s Syndrome would get worse before it got better. But tonight, it seemed as if she was definitely spending more time having fun than fighting her own brain, and I was glad.

  The four dancers split apart, drawing a moving panorama of flowers and windmills across the stage with fluid fire. The trails kept getting more complex, and I swore writing trailed behind the poi, blue-white letters imprinted in the air as the yellow flames passed. Was this fire magic?

  My skin prickled. The dancers parted—and Jewel took center stage.

  Her curled hair dripped with water. Her curvy body dripped with sweat. Her harem garb was sheer, showing off every juicy curve. Heftier than the others, she wore her weight with perfect confidence, sporting beneath her silks a tight bikini made of knotted rope.

  And in her hands she spun two elaborate fans tipped with fire.

  Smiling, Jewel danced toward the crowd, nimble feet covered in leather and chainmail spats that mirrored the gauntlets she still wore, seemingly picking each footfall in time with an expert weave and bob of her spinning fans. My skin shivered with her movement.

  She paused behind the fans, and in that brief moment I saw their structure, seven metal blades projecting from a central ring, each tipped with a wick of flame, like a cross between a Chinese fan and a menorah. But then I realized Jewel was looking at me, and I blushed.

  Jewel winked and whirled away, spinning the fans on her fingers by their central rings. Flame blossomed out from the fans, becoming trails of fire, then shimmering, rippling comets, spiraling out to span the stage like a galaxy, their heat seeming to reach to my bones.

  The crowd gasped, and then Jewel danced to the back of the stage, facing the crowd, leaning forward, whirling the fans behind her back. The comet tails joined, then spread again into a huge peacock tail rippling behind her. This was fire magic, and the crowd applauded.

  Jewel threw one of the fans high into the air, spinning so fast its flames went out, and thrust her hand forward, grabbing two long wands from an assistant as she caught the falling fan behind her back. She flicked her wrist, and chains ending with poi flew out from the tips of the wands. Jewel lit them with her remaining fan, spun it out and passed both of them off . . . then began whirling her poi staffs in a complicated, interweaving pattern.

  The wands were unusual, but the performance was pure, traditional fire magic, the kind I had seen Alex do before—bright bursts of flame, rainbow halos, arcing currents. Now there were no showy acrobatics or sexy dances—just Jewel’s en
ormous speed and skill, creating intricate loops of flame, trails of fire intersecting each other in the graphomantic patterns I knew from skindancing, setting off bright flares every time Jewel completed the logic of a design.

  A minute passed, then two, then five, as Jewel continued performing more and more elaborate magic; but as more and more time passed, her poi did not go out. My brow furrowed. The duration of the fire itself had to be magic, but no one else here could appreciate it.

  Finally, Jewel stepped the edge of the stage, whipping the poi wands around her faster and faster, rising on tiptoe—then rising into the air. At first, she just lifted straight up; then she pushed forward, floating out above the audience in a spinning ball of flame.

  I gasped. Everyone gasped. But me more than most. Woven through the patterns of fire, a shape was forming. As complex as Jewel’s spinning was, the fire itself, even the symbols writ in the fire, were precise mathematical arcs, like a three-dimensional spirograph drawn in flame.

  But sparks like stars flared in the magic. Movement like water flowed through the weave. A living thing took form, coiling around Jewel, sinuous, alive, and arrestingly familiar—a dragon, like my Dragon, glowing in space above me like a constellation of the Zodiac.

  My face lit up in wonder. The whirling of the poi roared above me like the dragon itself had a voice. I felt it calling to me. Tiny droplets of fire sizzled off the balls of flame and curved off in the magic, more artful than particles in a cloud chamber. I felt an irresistible pull.

  I stood, clapped—and then everyone surged to their feet in a standing ovation.

  Cinnamon was hopping, I was clapping, Jewel was hovering, arms whipping around her as she maintained that fantastic sphere of fire—and then she glanced down at me and winked. Cinnamon looked back at me and grinned toothily, and I flushed, embarrassed—and dizzy.

  Jewel subtly changed her weave, and the sphere slowly floated backward, the dragon whirling around it once more before dissipating in a sparkle of mana. I felt echoes in my tattoos, felt my own Dragon sliding against my body, felt it coiling around my legs and belly, flooding me with warmth as the magic dissipated—then my face reddened as the tip of its tail gently brushed the upper edge of my vulva. Like the touch of a lover.

  This was sympathetic magic, had to be, tuned to resonate against my marks. I didn’t know what kind of knowledge that would take. For Jewel to pull that off so effortlessly—and after such a quick glance at my tattoos—meant she was a formidable magician.

  Jewel settled back to the stage, just as the two pillars belched one last brilliant gout of fire to thunderous applause. She bowed, holding her wands behind her; their flame guttered, but only slightly. The wicks hissed angrily inside the towels when dark-garbed assistants put them out.

  Jewel straightened; then bent again as the rest of the troupe joined her for a bow.

  “Thank you, everyone,” she said. “I am the Princess of Fire, and we are the Fireweavers! We thank the Crucible for providing us this wonderful space, as well Monkton Teriano, the artist who forged Jachin and Boaz, the fire pillars you see here on stage. The Crucible is funded in part by donations, so please drop by their stand on the way out. Thank you and good-night!”

  “Wow,” Cinnamon said. “Fuck—I means, wow! That was amAZing—”

  “Yeah,” I laughed, tousling her hair. As the performers departed, Jewel glanced back, caught my eye—and then she reached that fluid hand out, pointed at me, and unmistakably crooked her finger at me in a come-hither gesture, just as she left the stage.

  I stood there, unblinking; then Cinnamon waved her hand in my face.

  ———

  “So, Mom,” she said, hopping up with a grin. “Gonna use your backstage pass?”

  4. Backstage Pass

  “I imagined you, before I met you, as an old biddy,” Jewel said. The Fireweavers had let us backstage, and we found the Princess of Fire lounging on a long blue bench, half out of her silks, one curvy leg stretched out, letting one of the male fan-dancers carefully unwrap the leather and chainmail spat she had donned for the performance. “A schoolteacher, head full of nonsense from theory of magic classes, inflicting her little classroom rules on the world.”

  One of the other fire swordsmen, the one they called Zi, turned around, eyebrow raised. “Wait a minute,” he said, wiping his sword and wrapping it in a wet towel, alternately looking at me standing there and Cinnamon bouncing around the room. “Who are we talking about?”

  “Dakota Frost.” Jewel pointed at me. “That Dakota Frost.”

  “That’s Dakota Frost?” Zi said, doing a double take, and I raised an eyebrow as the man looked me up and down. He was a vaguely Asian firespinner with short-cropped black hair—and looked cleaner cut than I did. “Holy shit. You are . . . not at all what I expected, Ms. Frost.”

  “You had expectations?” I asked, eyeing Cinnamon as she sniffed at a set of poi. I’d resisted taking her backstage, but then my former wild child began listing all her backstage passes, and at band number seven, I gave in. “You know of me, but not what I look like?”

  “I knew what you looked like,” the female firespinner called Yolanda said. “Your face was all over the news after that trial thing. Congratulations on beating the rap—”

  “Thanks,” I said distantly.

  “Her face was not all over the news,” Jewel said.

  “She was on the cover of Magnolia magazine!” Yolanda said.

  “Nobody outside of the South has ever heard of Magnolia magazine,” Jewel said. “You may not keep a low profile, Dakota, but you didn’t throw up billboards for your little project—and unlike you law enforcement types, we don’t keep dossiers on all of our enemies.”

  “So, I’m your enemy?” I said, mouth quirking up. She doesn’t feel like an enemy.

  “I didn’t mean actual enemy,” Jewel said crossly.

  “Yes, she did,” Zi snapped. “People like you keep trying to shut us down—”

  “Am I?” I asked. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face, whether from needling this guy or from the pleasure of watching Jewel lounging about like a harem queen. “But I’ve never heard of you guys before tonight—and I’m a friend of quite a few firespinners.”

  That gave the guy pause. “Well,” Zi said, somewhat less certainly, “maybe not shut us down specifically—but Yolanda told us what you’re trying to do in Atlanta. She says you’re trying to regulate magic, lock it down, make what we did tonight against the law—”

  “Why? Did you kill anyone on stage tonight?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. I was performing now, trying to make a point. “Are you planning to kill anybody on stage?”

  “No,” Zi said. But I just kept staring at him, and he realized it was actually a serious question. “What? No! What kind of people do you think we are?”

  “I dunno, I’ve never met you,” I said, still mock casual. “I’d say if you didn’t hurt anyone, or plan to hurt anyone, that should be enough . . . except, are any of the audience members who were exposed to your magic going to spontaneously combust?”

  “No!” the swordsman said.

  “No, and it isn’t possible,” Jewel began. Then she paused and bit her lip. “Well—”

  “Unless you screw up?” I asked. “Magic can do wonderful things, like draw art in the air or even make someone fly. But terrible things too . . . just, no one wants to admit it. People think that tattoos can’t control your mind, but they can. They think graffiti can’t rip you apart or burn you alive, but it can. And they think fire magic is just pretty entertainment, but is it? Can it cause people to spontaneously combust? Cause epileptic seizures? What dangers do you know?”

  Again, I raised an eyebrow, glancing between the two of them, and they had no answer. “If you don’t know . . . I’m collecting safety information and experts you can ask. So you can say, �
��yes, I do know our performance won’t accidentally set anyone on fire.’ ”

  “You know,” Jewel said slowly, “yes, we do know that. Firespinners are actually pretty psychotic about safety. We’re certain none of this magic had a pyromantic effect, and it’s actually pretty difficult to create self-kindling magic without the right fuel—”

  And then the other dancer, who all this time had been working on that same spat on Jewel’s ankle, finally undid the clasp. “There,” the boy said, carefully pulling it free, “see? Just took a little concentration to get it untangled. No need to rip it off and have it redone—”

  “Yeah, yeah, thanks, finally, I’m freezing,” Jewel said, hopping up, pulling off the rest of her silk pants with a quick motion and wadding them up into a ball. She threw them into a red bag, then squatted down and dug in her duffel.

  I half-covered my face with one hand—she’d unintentionally given me a great view of her curvy rump wrapped in that interesting hemp-rope bikini bottom—but then I noticed her legs and back were covered in an interesting flame design, not a tattoo but something I didn’t recognize.

  But before I could ask, Jewel pulled a pair of jeans out of her bag, which she immediately began worming on, not even bothering to change into normal underwear. When the hem of the jeans passed the rope on her hips, she glanced back at me, half grinning, half embarrassed.

  “Sorry,” she said, buttoning her jeans, jerking a dark top off the counter behind her, and slipping it on. “It’s just we’ve got a lot of cleanup to do and I’ve been stuck here like a useless lump while Henri was getting that off.”

  Jewel turned, pulling on a lumberjack shirt over the top—but I could see she’d sewn flames and beads into the threads of her jeans, and sequins into the shirt. It was a nice blend of femme and flannel. I stood there, staring, as she buttoned up and smiled at me.

  “You should say something,” Jewel said, grin growing broader.